The Kin (46 page)

Mana looked. The haze that covered the reedbeds all day was starting to turn golden as the sun moved towards its setting. Four weary people, each with two heavy gourds slung from their shoulders, had just emerged from it and were starting to climb towards the camp. Others had seen them too. She heard shouts from down the hill to her left, and everyone came running up from the fishing holes to greet the expedition.

By now they'd caught and found plenty of food to go round, and down in the marsh the insects were always worst in the evening, so they built up the fire and prepared their meal while they caught up with each other's news. Ko had caught three fish, which he shared with Mana. They were all smaller than the one she'd given away, but she didn't tell him.

At sunset, while they were still eating, the stranger woman gave a loud, wailing cry, and began to tear with her nails at her face and chest, till the blood came. Mana didn't need to look to know that the man was dead.

At first the woman wouldn't let anyone touch him, but after a while they insisted. They were certainly not going to sleep with a dead man near them. A body might attract demons, come to eat the spirit that was still tied to it. Some of them held the woman while the others carried the corpse well up the hillside and piled stones around and over it, and then in the last light the women did the death dance for the stranger, to set his spirit free, while his woman knelt wailing at the foot of the cairn.

Mana was too young to join in the dance. The stranger had let her take charge of her baby while she mourned for her man, and now Mana was sitting behind the line of women, with the little boy asleep in her arms, when she saw Noli break from the stamping rhythm, stiffen and sway. Bodu, beside her, caught and held her. Tinu took little Amola from her. The rest of the women stilled. The men, on the far side of the cairn, stopped their slow handclap and their groaning chant. Last of all the stranger woman looked up and fell silent, staring bewildered as the voice of Moonhawk came slowly between Noli's lips, deep and soft, but filling the long hillside with its sound.

“Blood falls,” said the voice. “Men follow.”

Noli's head dropped and her knees buckled, but Bodu and Tinu held her steady until she shook herself and snorted and looked around her. She murmured to Tinu and took the baby back. They all stared questioningly at each other. For a while no one said anything.

Mana could feel their fear and uncertainty. She knew they were all thinking the same thing. Moonhawk's brief message was frighteningly clear.
Blood falls
. The stranger man's wound had been oozing when Mana had first seen him. It must have dripped all the way as he had fled from his enemies, and had broken out afresh and left a still clearer trail as he'd been carried to camp.
Men follow
. Not just a single enemy, then. At least two, perhaps several.

“Do they follow this trail in the dark?” said Var. “Do they smell it?”

“I say they do not,” said Kern, who was the best tracker among them. “I say they wait. Tomorrow it is light. Then they come.”

“How many men,” asked Chogi. “Can Noli tell?”

“I do not see them,” muttered Noli. “They are hunters, fierce, fierce.”

Murmurs broke out. Mana saw Noli hold up her hand, but she seemed to be too dazed still from Moonhawk's visitation to assert herself. Bodu had seen the movement, though, and called out, “Wait. Noli tells more.”

Everyone fell silent again, straining to hear. This time Noli's voice was dreamy, and very quiet, but her own.

“I was a child,” she said. “We laired at Dead Trees Valley. I dreamed. Men came, fierce, fierce. They killed our men. They took our women. This was my dream. Moonhawk sent it. It was a true dream. These men came.”

Everyone knew what she was talking about, though Mana herself had been only a small one when it had happened, and couldn't remember it, except sometimes at the shadowy edges of a nightmare. The eight Kins had been living peaceably in the Old Good Places, as they'd done ever since the time of the Old-tales, when a horde of murdering strangers had burst upon them, killing all the males they could catch and taking the women for themselves.

Only the Moonhawk Kin had had any warning, because of Noli's dream, but they hadn't believed her.

Now they did. There was a horrified silence before Chogi asked the question in everyone's mind.

“These are those men?”

Noli hesitated.

“I do not know,” she muttered. “I think … I think they are others.”

Tun took charge.

“Hear me,” he said. “We keep watch tonight, by three and by three. We hide the fire. Tomorrow we wake in the dark. We are ready. We set lookouts. They see who comes, how many. Few men, we meet them. They see we are more. They go away. Many men, we go into the marsh. We know the paths. They do not. Is this good?”

There were mutters of agreement, and they went back down to the camp, deciding as they went who should do what, and how they should confront the strangers if it came to that.

Only the dead man's woman stayed mourning by the cairn. In the middle of the night she crept into the camp. By then her baby was restless and whimpering, but she took him and suckled him for a while, and then lay down at Mana's side and slept.

Huddled in her lookout, almost at the ridge that ran along the top of the promontory, Mana waited for Ko's signal. He was further along the hillside, at a point from which he could see a long way north. The hunters were sure to be following the blood trail. Very early that morning Kern had tracked it as far as the point at which Ko would first see them appear, so he knew exactly where to look. Mana couldn't yet see him, as he was below the skyline on the far side of a low spur.

Slowly the shadows of the rocks shifted as time dragged past. Around mid morning Mana saw Ko appear, crawling between two boulders. As soon as he was again below the skyline he stood and raised both arms. Mana did the same, to show she had seen the signal. Now Ko lowered his right arm and raised it again, once, twice, three times, four …

Four hunters only. She sighed with relief as she answered the signal, then moved to where she could pass the news on down to the camp. Suth waved back, turned and spoke to the people at the camp, waited for an answer and turned back to her. He raised both hands and pushed them towards her.

Stay there
.

There were few enough hunters for the adults of the Kin to wait at the camp and face them. Mana waved and passed the order back to Ko, who answered and crawled out of sight. Then she waited, dry mouthed, heart hammering, her eyes on the point where the blood trail crossed Ko's spur, a long way down from his lookout.

Below her the hillside seemed empty. Suth had vanished. The marsh was hidden under its usual haze. Somewhere out there, a safe distance along the winding paths, the mothers were waiting with the babies and small ones. Everyone else was concealed among the boulders round the camp.

The hunters came much sooner than she'd guessed, slinking across the skyline. One, two, three, four, swift and stealthy, pausing, peering ahead and then darting on to the next piece of cover. They weren't hiding for fear of meeting some enemy, only because they didn't want to alarm their prey. Every now and then their leader would crouch, point and peer for a moment at something on the ground. Mana knew what he'd found—another speck of the blood trail. It didn't take them long to reach the hollow where Mana had first discovered the strangers.

They crouched at its edge for a moment, and slipped down out of sight. Mana ducked behind a boulder and signalled to the camp. Suth didn't risk an answer, but she was confident he'd seen her. She returned to her watch.

The hunters were out of sight for a while. They would be reading the signs that Kern had found—the man had lain here and bled, the woman had knelt here, the child had pissed here, chewed fishbones had been spat out here. Then others had come. The man had been helped, lifted. His wound had broken out afresh …

Now she saw them again, but this time it was only a single head peering over the rim of the hollow, studying the hillside ahead. Yes, they had read the signs well. Now they knew they had more than one woman and a wounded man to deal with.

All four came out of the hollow and moved on, crouching and darting, taking more trouble to hide, but moving just as confidently as before. As they passed below her Mana got her first clear view of them. They were different from any people she knew, with long, thin arms and legs, and skins as dark as her own, but not her deep clear brown. Theirs was greyer, with a faint purple tinge beneath the surface. They wore belts with one or two strange pale gourds slung from them, and carried pointed sticks, longer than ordinary digging sticks, but shorter and stouter than the fishing stick Mana had been using yesterday.

Every now and then one of them would freeze and stare around, and Mana would freeze with him and hold her breath, sure that this time as the fierce gaze swept across the slope he would notice the glisten of an eye behind the crack between two boulders. It was hard not to sigh with relief as the gaze moved past her and on.

Despite these pauses they covered the ground quickly. Soon they had almost reached the camp. When they were still about ten and ten paces away from it, Tun, Suth, Var and Kern, with their digging sticks in their hands, rose from behind rocks. Tun took a pace forward with his left hand raised in greeting and his hair peaceably still.

The strangers scarcely hesitated. Instantly their hair bushed out. They gave a sharp, barking shout and charged. The four Kin shouted in answer and raised their digging sticks. Mana saw Kern, nearest her, parry a thrust, but then the rest of the Kin rose from their hiding places and rushed to join the scuffle. Their cries echoed along the hillside, savage and furious. One of the strangers broke from the throng and raced away. Nobody but Mana saw him go. She stood up, pointed and yelled, but her voice was lost in the uproar. By the time the fighting stopped he was well along the slope.

She yelled again. Heads turned. She pointed. Net and Tor raced off after the man, but he had too great a start and they soon gave up. Mana turned back to the others. She could see one body—no, two—lying on the ground, part hidden by people's legs. Somebody was sitting on a rock, nursing a wounded arm. Chogi was looking at somebody's hurt head. Suth waved, and pointed towards Ko's lookout, out of sight from the camp, then waved again, beckoning. Mana passed the message on and ran down the hill.

It was Tun whose arm was wounded, a deep gash from a thrust in that first attack. Yova's eye was swollen shut. She'd been hit by the butt of somebody's digging stick as he'd drawn it back to strike. Shuddering, Mana looked at the bodies, three of them, the third one down in the hollow by the fire. They were all those of the strangers. The two she'd first seen lay face down, but the third, bloody and battered, stared blindly at the sky. At his side lay the thing that had hung from his belt. It wasn't any kind of gourd. It was a human skull.

Appalled, terrified, Mana turned away. Suth was at her side, staring down at the dead man and the dreadful thing beside him. She clung to him and buried her face in his side, while he put his arm round her and held her.

“This is demon stuff,” he muttered.

Oldtale

THE RAGE OF ROH

Dop fought with Gul. Gul won. Fat Pig and Snake saw this
.

Snake said, “See. My man Gul is better.”

Fat Pig said, “The sun shone in Dop's eyes.”

Snake said, “Gul made it so. He was clever.”

He laughed. He went back to the Mountain, the Mountain above Odutu
.

Fat Pig was angry. He went to Dop. He breathed on him. He healed his wounds. He filled him with strength
.

Still Dop slept. Fat Pig sent him a dream. In the dream he spoke to him. He said, “Dop, my piglet, you are dishonoured by Gul. He took your dilli buck. Now he boasts to his Kin. He says
,
I fought with Dop. I beat him. He was grass before my blows.' Dop, what do you say to my Kin? What boast do you make?”

Dop woke. He remembered the fight with Gul. He looked, and saw the dilli buck was gone. He was filled with fresh rage
.

He journeyed to Sam-Sam, to the cliff of caves. Fat Pig camped there. Their leader was Roh. He was Dop's father. He was old
.

Dop stood before him. He said, “Roh, my father, I am dishonoured.”

Roh said, “Dop, my son, who dishonours you?”

Dop said, “Gul dishonours me, of the Kin of Snake. It happened thus and thus.” And he told of the fight
.

Roh was foolish. He did not say in his heart, My son fought all day with Gul. I see his wounds. They are healed. This is First One stuff. He did not think. He was filled with rage. It was of this sort:

See Sometimes River. The bed is empty. It is dry stones. Deer drink at the pools. Now the flood comes. It is a hill of water. It rushes through the bed of the river. The deer flee. They are swift, but the water is swifter. It sweeps them away. They are gone. The river is filled with water. It roars
.

Such was the rage of Roh
.

He called the men of Fat Pig about him. He spoke fierce words. He filled them with rage. He said, “Where do Snake camp?”

They answered, “Roh, Snake camp at Egg Hills. It is their Place. It is not ours. We do not go there.”

Roh said, “Now you go to Egg Hills. You lie in wait for a man of Snake. You take vengeance on him for the dishonour of Dop.”

The men of Fat Pig put food in their gourds. They sharpened their digging sticks. They set out to Egg Hills
.

CHAPTER THREE

Nobody was willing to stay near the dead men, let alone touch them. Without any more talk they moved well away from the camp, while Nar went up the hill to keep lookout and Ko ran down to the marsh to fetch the mothers and children.